Alleged 'knockout' game attack leaves Alberta boy in pain, 'basically starving' while waiting days for surgery

A Grande Prairie, Alberta grandmother says she is outraged that her 12-year-old grandson has been victimized twice in the past week, first by a group of boys who allegedly attacked him as part of violent new game, and then by a health system that left him waiting in pain for surgery.

Cathy Rode said her Grade 6 grandson, Thomas Steidel, was assaulted Saturday in a schoolyard as part of recent craze among teenagers known as the “knock-down” or “knockout” game.

The game, which has received considerable attention in the United States in recent years, typically involves a group of assailants punching unsuspecting strangers in the head. The goal is to knock them to the ground or render them unconscious. Sometimes the attacks are filmed, with the video shared among friends or posted online.

“It’s going around the schools here like crazy,” Rode said. “It’s even affecting the girls. It’s essentially for bragging rights.”

In Thomas’s case, Rode said he was playing with a friend in the park attached to Hillside Elementary School when they were approached by a group of five boys aged 13 to 16.

She said the two victims tried to run away but Thomas’s friend was tracked down by the other boys and beaten. When Thomas went back to help, he was attacked as well. One of the attackers filmed the incident, though the video hasn’t yet been located online, Rode said.

The whole shape of his face has changed, because it was dislodged. It’s disgusting

“He got about 10 blows to the face, and at least a couple were in the same spot on his jaw and so his jaw is fractured,” she said. “The whole shape of his face has changed, because it was dislodged. It’s disgusting.”

Thomas was taken to hospital, where doctors told his family that the boy’s injuries were severe enough that surgery would be required to attach two titanium plates to his jaw. The surgeon indicated the procedure had to be done quickly, before the displaced bones began knitting back together, Rode said.

She said Thomas was immediately placed on an urgent surgery list, yet waited at the hospital all day Monday and Tuesday without getting into an operating room. Hospital staff also expressed doubt the surgery would happen Wednesday, which was when Rode decided to contact the media.

She said the publicity seemed to get things moving, as Thomas received his operation late Wednesday afternoon while his mother received an apology from the zone medical director.

“To me, there is no excuse for a child to be treated that way. The poor kid’s in severe pain and he’s basically starving, because he can’t really eat or drink while waiting for surgery.”

Zone medical director Kevin Worry said the delay was regrettable, but occurred because of an unusually large volume of patients this week arriving with even more pressing problems.

“We don’t want to ever see our kids waiting for surgery,” Worry said. “In this case, where he had been at the hospital for a couple of days, that is challenging to see him go through that. This was an atypical case.”

He said that in retrospect, hospital administrators felt they could have transferred Thomas to another hospital, though the high influx of urgent patients was impossible to predict.

Meanwhile, Grande Prairie RCMP are investigating Sunday’s schoolyard attack, along with another similar assault that was reported within the last week.

But to go and label it as this knock-down or knockout game, I think that’s a label that other people are choosing to put on it. We call it assault and we treat it as an assault investigation

“We do have some indication there are some young people instigating fights, sometimes with very unwilling individuals,” said Cpl. Roy Kennedy. “But to go and label it as this knock-down or knockout game, I think that’s a label that other people are choosing to put on it. We call it assault and we treat it as an assault investigation.”

He said police are looking into whether any incriminating videos are being shared online.

“If there are other people this has happened to, we want them to come forward. Sometimes things appear anecdotally on Facebook and it’s difficult, without having a complainant, to commence with an investigation.”

Numerous reports of knockout game attacks in the U.S. exist — including at least four that turned fatal — but the trend doesn’t seem to have caught on in Canada.

Regardless of the motivation for the attack on Thomas, Rode said she hopes his assailants will be arrested soon. She said her grandson likely has a lengthy recovery ahead, both physically and to his psyche, from the ordeal he has suffered.